|
To understand mediumship it is necessary to know
something of man's several bodies. In addition to the dense, visible instrument
he uses here in this world for material purposes, man has also a vital body,
composed of ether, a desire or emotional body, and a mind. The individualized
Spirit or Ego lives in and uses these interpenetrating vehicles to gather
experience in the school of life.
In the waking state, the dense body and the
vital body (the latter interpenetrating and extending out about 1 1/2 inches
beyond the former) are surrounded and interpenetrated by the egg-shaped cloud
comprising the desire body and the mind. These vehicles are concentric, and it
is the interpolation of one into the other, so that the sense centers in one are
in proper alignment with the sense centers of the other, which enables the Ego
to manipulate the complex organism and perform in an ordered manner the life
processes which we call reason, speech and action.
Restorative Sleep
When the dense body goes to sleep, there is
a separation of the vehicles. The Ego and the mind, clothed in the desire body,
draw out from the vital body and the dense body, the two later remaining on the
bed, while the higher vehicles hover above or near the sleeping body, connected
to it by the silver cord. The process of restoration begins shortly afterward.
In normal cases, the desire body (having been harmonized in the Desire World)
pumps rhythmic energy into the vital body, and that in turn starts to work upon
the dense body, eliminating the products of decay, principally by means of the
sympathetic nervous system. The result is that the dense body is restored and
overflowing with life when the desire body, mind, and Ego re enter it in the
morning and cause it to awaken.
Earthbound Spirits
At death the same separation between the
bodies takes place as in sleep. The so-called dead have Ego, mind, and desire
body, and are often conscious of the material world they have left for some time
after death. Some cling to the earth life and cannot bring their minds to
learn the new lessons. We call them "earthbound Spirits." They cannot
function in the visible world without a body, however, and so they make use of
the living whose dense and vital bodies are loosely connected. All Spirits are
not confined with equal closeness to the prison of the dense body. Those who are
most closely bound are the rank materialists; those who are not so tightly bound
are the "impressionists," capable of answering in some measure to
spiritual vibrations. Persons of positive character who are able to respond to
these vibrations, if they develop, do so by their own wills, and become trained
occultists. Those of weak will can develop only by the aid of others, and in a
negative way. They are the prey of earthbound Spirits who constitute themselves
"spirit guides" and develop their victims as "trance
mediums," or if the connection between the victim's dense and vital bodies
be particularly lax, into materializing mediums.
A medium is a negative or involuntary
clairvoyant, having the dense and vital bodies loosely connected and under the
control of a Spirit from the Desire World. He or she corresponds to the victim
of a hypnotist in the Physical World.
The Trance Medium
In the case of a trance medium all her
experiences take place while the physical body is in a trance. It is the Ego
clothed in the mind and desire body which leaves the physical body behind, and
the same separation takes place then as in dreamless sleep, with the difference,
however, that the physical body is not left tenantless upon the bed. The spirit
control usually enters the physical body of the medium, taking possession and
using it according to his pleasure often to the great detriment of the medium.
For instance, when such a spirit control has been a drunkard or libertine during
earth life, it will often use the medium's body to gratify its craving for
liquor, or its base sensual instincts. We cannot too strongly impress upon
people that this physical body is our most valuable instrument and that it is
very wrong for anyone to abandon it to the mercy of either a hypnotist or a
Spirit control.
In regard to earthbound Spirits, it should
be remembered that they are in every respect like the hypnotists, except that
they are invisible to the victims and have more power over them, because they
are looked up to as "higher beings," "angels," devoid of
evil, and unselfishly aiming to diffuse happiness or wisdom. As a matter of
fact, there is no transforming power in death. The sinner does not become a
saint nor the ignoramus a Solomon because of death, and it is a pathetic sight
to the trained clairvoyant to see the imposition practiced by their unprincipled
spirit controls upon their unsuspecting victims, who are so thoroughly
unsophisticated that they fail to distinguish the true character of the
imposters and accept their inane, goody-goody phrases as sublime wisdom. They
have done some good in proving the reality of life after death, but much harm to
mediums.
It is to be expected that Spirits of a high
ethical nature or great spiritual attainment do not usually control a medium.
Rather it is the earthbound and low Spirits who obtain a control over
mediumistic persons, and when in possession of the body they may use it to
gratify their low passions for drink and sex. Thus they cause a disturbance to
the system and a deterioration of the instrument.
The Materializing Medium
In the case of the materializing medium,
the materializing Spirit entrances the victim and then draws the ether of the
vital body out through the spleen, for as has been stated, the difference
between the materializing medium and the ordinary person is the fact that the
connection between the vital body and the dense body is exceedingly lax, so that
it is possible to withdraw this vital body to a very great extent. The vital
body is the vehicle whereby the solar currents which give us vitality are
specialized. Deprived of the vitalizing principle, the body of the medium at the
time of materialization sometimes shrinks to almost one-half its usual size; the
flesh becomes flabby and the spark of life burns very low. When the seance is
over and the vital body replaced, the medium is awakened to normal
consciousness. He then experiences a feeling of the most terrible exhaustion and
sometimes, unfortunately, resorts to drink to revive the vital forces. In that
case of course, the health will soon suffer and the medium will become a total
wreck.
Unfortunately, the great majority of
mediums do not realize that they are in danger. They are particularly unaware of
the enormous danger which threatens them after death. The desire body may then
be appropriated by the spirit control, as mentioned previously. If they try to
stop the influence of the spirit control while still here in the body they find
that the entity has an exceedingly strong hold upon them, a control it is very
difficult to break, and they should realize that naturally when death brings
them into the same world with these spirit controls, the danger will be still greater.
Cases have been known where mediums balked
and tried to escape from the toils of the spirit control, but they failed to
break the strong hold of the entity. They were helpless. Mediums have told how
they were almost irresistibly compelled to commit suicide and murder; how they
begged and pleaded with the controls to leave them alone, but without avail.
Cases are also known where spirit controls have mercilessly dragged their
victims out of bed in the middle of the night against their will and forced them
to listen to their importunities. Only seldom does one hear that they show
mercy.
Thus it will be seen that mediumship, once
entered into, is not usually a matter of choice with the mediums; they lose the
power to shut out spirit controls. While they do the bidding of their task
masters and are docile, they may not feel the bit; but let one of them try to
balk, and he or she will soon find that the spirit control has both bit and spur
and is merciless in the use of them.
Obsession
The modus operandi of the invisible
manipulator is simply to push the higher vehicles out of the lower bodies of the
unresisting medium, step in itself and take control. When he leaves he also
takes part of the medium's vital body to use as a key or lever next time. In
some cases he is not satisfied to borrow a body, but steals one and keeps the
owner out permanently. We see the same body, but there is another Ego within,
which shows different habits and tastes altogether. This is called obsession,
and can be detected by the fact that the iris neither responds to light nor
distance by contraction or expansion. Only the owner can manipulate the eye.
Hence the eyes of mediums under control are always closed or have a glassy
stare.
Self-Mastery is the Goal
Obviously, the lesson to be learned from a
knowledge of these matters is that we must remain our own masters and never
under any pretext allow ourselves to be hypnotized or controlled by an outside
agency. Neither should we take part even as spectators of seances and hypnotic
demonstrations, for the negative attitude there lays one liable to influence or
obsession. Self-mastery is our goal, and not mastery over others.
|